Monday, March 30

Master Piece

My boys have shown very little interest over the years in crafty things. And to be honest I really have worked much with them on coloring. The boys were making bday cards for Miss Jackie this afternoon and Tanyon was very excited to get to work. I was working in the kitchen and after a couple of minutes Tanyon asks me how many legs does a lady bug have. I said 4 I think and happened to look at his paper and was completely blown away! He had a drawn a lady bug and it really did resemble a lady bug. This was definitely a first in our house. I honestly don't know if a typical 4 year can draw like this, but I was very proud of my little Picaso! :)

Here's his master piece:

A funny little side story- As Tanyon was showing his card to Miss Jackie I must of commented that I told Tanyon lady bugs have 4 legs and I thought it was cute that he drew 4 legs on each side. He looked at me and said "Mom if the lady bug only had 4 legs on one side he'd fall over." :) Very clever to make sure the lady bug kept his balance.

Friday, March 27

1 year

We have officially been in our house for one year now. It is so hard to believe how quickly this past year has gone. As I thought back to moving in last year, I can really see how the Lord has blessed us in this year. Watching the kids play outside today reminded me how blessed we are to no longer be living on a busy road. The kids can roam and I don't have to be worried about their every move. We have gained so much space inside our house too. I've been reminded of the list Adam and I made when we started considering moving of what we wanted in a house. God provided us with everything in this house that we needed, except the not needing repairs part but we're doing okay with that. I really believe part of the reason that the winter wasn't too rough on us this year was because of the room that the kids had to play. They would kind of bounce from one room to the next and weren't forced to just play in the living room like our old house. We now have a house that we can entertain in too. We've had Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's and Birthday parties all of which could have never been done in our old house. In addition to the house and property, we have gained the world's greatest neighbors! We cherish their friendship and they have become such a special part to our family.

We have been given so much but it sure took a toll on our family, our marriage and our sanity for a while! My brain reached a point this winter that I felt like it had been fried. I really believe it was from all of the stress that involved last year. Adam and I have learned first hand that God promises to take care of us, but it doesn't always mean that it will be easy. We've had our bumps, but boy has God been faithful to us! I look forward to what else God has in store for us in the years to come in this house.

And if I didn't see his faithfulness in all of this, I was reminded today that our house sold in 4 days this summer. This definitely was a God thing!

Wednesday, March 25

Happy Birthday Tanyon!

Tanyon turned 4 this past weekend. I find myself saying this all the time, but I can't believe how fast time goes. Tanyon was a big surprise to Adam and I but is such a special part to our family. He has filled the role of middle child perfectly. Tanyon has been notorious for finding messes, but I've never seen a child with such a caring heart. Tanyon has the ability to bring a smile to any one's face.

I forgot how pudgy Tanyon was when he was a baby.


As an infant, Tanyon had a tendency to be fussy, but once he started moving he was as happy as could be. He just wanted to keep up with his brother. :)

Almost a year.

One of my favorite pics of Tanyon when he was little. I used this for his bday invitation for his 1st bday.

Tanyon has been guaranteed to be a mess since day one. He somehow stained his clothes as a baby with his drool and the streak has continued to this day. It is rare to find him with a clean face. (boy, what does that say about his Mommy?!)




Tanyon always makes the most innocent looking faces for pictures. I think God allows this so my memory will remember the good and forget the frustrating ones. :)


Tanyon has a special bond with his brother and sister.

Tanyon and Addie have a love/hate relationship. Addie is always one step behind her brother. They love to pick on each other and see the other one get upset, but boy do they show lovin' to each other too! Whenever Tanyon talks to Addie he uses the softest little voice and he always seem to look out for her best interest.


Tanyon and Bryson are best of buds. Tanyon always makes sure that Bryson has whatever he has. Their favorite thing to play right now is doggy.


Oh how this pict. bring a smile to my face. We had to spend a lot of time battling with Tanyon in the area of sleeping. There were many ugly moments but it seems like those sleeping battles are behind us for the most part. Just the other day I praised Tanyon for making good choices at naptime and he said "Yeah, at the old house me didn't make good choices." I had to agree. :)


Dear Tanyon,
Happy Birthday sweet boy! Mommy and Daddy love you so very much. You have an incredible ability to make us rub our heads in frustration one minute and have us smiling the next! You are one special guy. I know that God has a special plan for your life and am so thankful that he has allowed me to be your Mommy. I am amazed these days at how your are maturing. You have given us some eventful stories to share over the years and I'm thankful that God has been watching out for you. You think the world of your brother and I pray daily that the 2 of you will become the best of friends. Your sister thinks her big brother is the greatest too. You love to give her hugs and at times lead her into trouble. I know though that as the 2 of you get older you will always look out for her though. Tanyon, I am amazed at how you care for the needs of others. Whenever you receive something you always make sure that Addie and Bryson get the same thing. I pray that as you continue to grow that you will not lose focus of others. This is a tremendous gift the Lord has given you! I pray and look forward to the day that you accept Jesus as your forever friend. There are so many things that I think you will be good at, but I hope that the most important thing in your life will be to serve Jesus in all that you do. I can't wait to see the man you will become and am honored to be you Mom.
I Love You!
Mom

Wednesday, March 18

Warm Weather

Yesterday we took advantage of the warm weather. We headed to the park with our friends Christian and McKenna and their Mommy. We had tons of fun playing. Addie fell into a mud puddle shortly after getting there and thought that was tons of fun. She was wet from her shirt down to her socks. I just realized that I never took a pic of her all messy. This little gal is something else. She thought what not that she should stand on the merry go round, she went up the big slide without any hesitation and climbed right on the animal ridey thing (not so sure what you should call it) all by herself. We then ate lunch at the McD's that has the fun play area outside. After naps we played baseball with Pappy and we went for a bike ride to the Drooger's. Today it's raining and cooler again, but we took advantage of all the sun yesterday!

Uncle Craig was the hit on the see saw. He took everyone else for quite a ride.


Bryson and Christian bouncing away and loving it!


Tanyon and Christian making a train down the slide.


Addie and McKenna


I love this one of the 2 girls checking each other out.

The gang on the swing together.


The highlight of our time, a real TRAIN!!!!


And of course, Tanyon being Tanyon. :)
We love sunshine and warm weather, especially Mommy! Can't wait until it's here for good!!!

Tuesday, March 17

What a Day!

We survived an action packed day! And I have no pics to prove it. We were out of the house this morning by 9 to travel to a discount grocery store that's about an hour from our house. I have made several trips to this store but never thought of taking the kids with me because this store has so many goodies that the kids would want and you have to dig through all of the shelves. Today I was brave! I took all 3 kids and my brother. He was essential in helping to push a second cart since I typically fill one cart with groceries when I go. I was very hesitant in going with the kids, but we were getting very low on the things that I buy from there and I also needed candy for church. So off we went. The kids did pretty well. I wish that I would of taken a picture of the one cart overflowing with groceries and the other cart stuffed with all 3 kids and my brother pushing it. But we were already drawing way too much attention to ourselves. :) To my surprise, Tanyon did the best out of the kiddos. He stayed right with my cart and just went with the flow. Several times I felt like questioning if he really was my kid. :)

Then we rushed to lunch at McD's. This was the incentive for good behavior from our shopping excursion. We had 30 minutes to eat before we had to get Uncle Craig to work. Then it was home for naps while Mommy unloaded the car and put away the groceries. We had speech at 3:30, fit some baseball in before supper, eat supper in about 20 minutes and then we were off to go roller skating.

Yes, I said roller skating. What I didn't mention was that I took the 2 boys by myself while Adam stayed home with Addie. What an adventure. The boys had never been on roller skates before. I can honestly say that I have never seen my boys so scared of something before! Tanyon's eyes seemed like they were going to bulge out of his head. And both of them had a death grip on the wall. I would consider my boys very coordinated, but that's just say that roller skating is NOT their thing. They were begging for mercy to get off the rink floor. Bryson kept saying that the floor was too slippery. It was quite comical. I laughed so hard, even though they didn't find it so funny. All the boys wanted to do was play the arcade games and jump in the bounce house. I made them do 2 more laps (because you know we had to get our money's worth of the bargain night skating.) and then they were off to the bounce house. They were in all of their glory then. I should have just paid the dollar for each of them to get into the rink and then just let them bounce all night.

Since Rita's is now open I couldn't drive by without us getting a little treat to wrap up our full day. When we got home, Daddy and Addie were missing. Here they went and did a little shopping at Lowe's and then had a dessert date at Applebee's. Daddy was quite proud of himself and Addie really seemed like she enjoyed herself. She was all smiles when she got home.

I am ready for bed, but quite disappointed that we have no pictures to show of our day!

Happy Bday Jen!

I maded this for my bestest bud for her birthday. Thought it was too funny not to post. Jen we are so thankful for your friendship and the lovin' you show to our kiddos! Thanks Sara for the link. If I had more time I would have dug out some old pics of us Jen, but I just wused up my morning time before the kids got up to make this. Now we must scramble to get back on track for our morning. Addie just helped herself to some of Tanyon's left over bday cake. What a mess, have to post a picture later.

Silly video

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Wednesday, March 11

Our crazy week!

Monday afternoon was our big day for kindergarten registration. Bryson was so excited to go! He had been telling people for weeks that he had his first appointment. Mommy had been really stressed that he wasn't ready for the testing based off of a friend's scouting report, but there was nothing to the screening. Nothing like teaching your 5 year old to the test already. I had to chuckle to myself when they were asking Bryson to identify the letters he was saying the letter name and then the sound. This was a result of us drilling the letter for the past week. The unforunate part to the day was that Bryson failed his vision test for his right eye miserably! He couldn't read the letters past the first line!! I was stunned and thought he must be nervous or something, but when they had him read with his left eye he whizzed right through the letters. I would have NEVER thought something was wrong with his eyesight. I am so thankful they did this screening and very disappointed that our family doctor didn't do a screening! So we're heading to the eye doctor's tomorrow. From the little bit of research I did online, it looks like corrective glasses and an eye patch are in his future.
Bryson was so proud of all the goodies he was given at registration. Mommy was impressed with information that they gave for the parents too. It's very clear on what they expect him to do by the time school starts.
Tuesday brought us to Bryson's kindergarten physical, which meant- the dreaded shots (4 of them)!! I didn't think to take a picture. I think my mind was pretty preoccupied managing the troops and keeping Bryson from totally melting down. We have talked him for months that if he was a tough guy with his shots he would get a happy meal, which is a very special treat because Mommy usually only orders off the Dollar Menu. I must say that Bryson did pretty good with the shots. He has a tendency to be more dramatic when sick and hurt so I wasn't so sure what to expect. I had to chuckle last night though because he says to me "Mom, do you think I could watch some TV because I really should rest my legs you know from these shots." Of course Mommy said yes.
The next ordeal came with Tanyon. Off and on since Sunday, he has been complaining about his "belly" hurting. He has been crying about it, which really isn't his typical behavior. He gets up from his nap yesterday and starts crying that his "belly" hurts but he grabs his throat. So I say wait a minute does it hurt here (pointing to the belly) or here (pointing to the throat) and he points to his throat. I feel his throat and his glands are really larage. Are you kidding me? We were just at the Dr. We couldn't have figured this our just 4 hours earlier to save us another copay?!
So that brings us to today. I call and make him an appointment this morning, so irritated that we are going to the dr's on back to back days. We got an afternoon apptment right in the middle of nap times and of course there's no other appointments. This was a blessing in disguise, because as Addie is sitting on my lap around lunch time I discover this as I'm pulling her hair back:
At first glance i'm totally confused as to what it is. So I look a little closer. I'm embarrassed to admit this but I first think "Oh my goodness she hit her head on something (which is quite possible) and I didn't even notice it (even more possible) and now I start to panic because I start to wonder if it's a piece of her brain oozing out (silly i know, but I had NEVER seen anything like this). I seriously started to panic! I gathered myself enough to force myself to look a little bit closer. This is what I discovered:
It may not be so easy to see here, but there were legs sticking out of this gray object!! Which means my daughter has a very large tick attached to her head and at this point I start to panic. The kids were at Adam's parents house (who live in the woods) Thur and Fri night and is more than likely that's where she picked this critter up at- which means the bugger has been feasting on my daughter's head for 5 days!!! Tick's fall under Adam's responsibility and he wasn't home. Which sends me into a greater panic because ticks sort of fall into a phobia of mine and i have NO idea what to do. I called adam's cell, I text adam (which I never do), i called his cell again hoping it was his lunch period, I call my mom, I take pictures of the tick and email them to adam begging him to call me. Finally I broke down and called directly into the school. Adam looks at the pics and says "I've never seen one that engorged before on someone!" AAAAHHHH! He's not helping me!! I knew I couldn't take this critter out by myself because I had to hold back her hair and hold down her ear, which used up both of my hands. :) Plus I honestly don't think I could have been brave enough. So we got 2 for the price of one in copays at the dr's office. Tanyon's throat looked fine, he's really congested, but I don't understand why he's been in so much pain off and on the past several days. The Dr looked at Addie's ear and said it was a dog tick and there were no worries. She was a trooper as he pulled it out. Tanyon, who was watching very closely, commented "Wow, Addie- your tough, you didn't even fuss!" So thankfully it wasn't a deer tick, but I'm going to keep a close eye on the wound.
Tonight was Bryson's t-ball meeting which he was so excited to meet his new friends. Unfortunately, he really didn't get to talk to any of the other kids, much to his disappointment. He prayed the other night for "God to help him to make some friends on his t-ball team!" That's been my prayer too, but I've emphasized the word "good" though in my prayers. :)
So hopefully tomorrow doesn't hold any drama other than going to the eye dr. As crazy as today was, I walked away from the dr's office so thankful for my kids good health and for protecting my Addie girl. I'm hoping I don't have any nightmares tonight from the tick- it honestly wigged me out that much today.

Monday, March 2

Time

I can't believe it's March already! It seems like just last week I was writing February on our dry erase calendar. The amazement of how fast time is moving got me thinking about time in my life. It doesn't seem that long ago I just couldn't wait to meet our first little baby and now he's getting ready for kindergarten. I can remember the LONG days I spent at home with the boys. There were mornings where I thought I'd never make it to lunch time. Fast forward to present day and there doesn't seem to be enough time in the day. We make a to do list and I'm happy if I get half of it done. There was a time when if I had to stay home all day it was a nightmare and now for the most part I prefer to stay home. I remember Adam and I thinking 7 pm would never come quick enough to get the boys into bed and now we celebrate if we have everyone down by 8:30!

It's funny how each step in life brings new challenges and relieves other things. I'm so thankful for my kids and how there growing, but I'm trying to not get too caught up in all that needs done because before I know it they're not going to want Mommy's attention and a snuggle will be a thing of the past.

So I'm gonna try to find joy in the tears and the fights and the wrestling matches and the MESSES and try to dwell on the special little moments too!
like special hugs . . .
and all 3 kids playing happily together.